The Devil’s Endgame

Flashback

Age 19

Standing in the ruins of what had once been Salvatore "The Butcher" Bianchi's territory- a streach of Brooklyn docks where shipments disappeared, men turned up in the Hudson, and loyalty was bought with fear.

Tonight, it would be mine.

Bianchi’s men were on their knees, hands zip-tied behind their backs, their faces swollen from Enzo’s fists. The Butcher himself sat in a chair in the center, his once-immaculate suit now torn, his lip split.

"Last chance, Sal," I said, rolling my sleeves up to my elbows. "work for me or die?"

Bianchi spat at my shoes. "You’re a fucking kid playing dress-up..."

I didn't let him finish.

"As you wish"  The sound of a switchblade flicking open was the last thing Bianchi heard before his scream tore through the warehouse.

By dawn, the docks were mine.

The Butcher’s men either swore loyalty or fed the fishes. The Russians backed off. The Irish renegotiated their deals. And for the first time, they didn’t say Don Romano’s son.

They said Dante "The Devil" Romano.

And New York learned to fear me.

Present

The club was alive with the usual vices music, smoke, liquor, and people spending their money. La Rosa Nera was too loud, too bright, too fucking everything. In my office I swirled my bourbon, watching the ice melt as Enzo and Luca argued over the Bratva’s latest move.

"—could hit the docks Thursday," Luca grunted, his massive arms crossed. "Take them out first."

Ricci snorted, not looking up from his tablet. "And start a war without intel? Brilliant."

I tuned them out.

All I could think about was her.

Sophia.

Fuck if I knew why she clung to my thoughts like a bad habit. Maybe it was the way she’d glared at me when I took her from her home, all fire and defiance. Maybe it was the way she smelled like roses and rebellion, a fucking contradiction wrapped in silk. The way she’d looked at me this morning like she wanted to carve my heart out....Fuck if I understood why that turned me on.

Or maybe it was because she was the key to breaking Antonio Moretti.

And because you want her.

I smirked into my glass. That too.

"Penny for your thoughts, boss?" Enzo said

I took a slow sip. "Thinking about how much I’d pay to never hear you ask me that again."

Ricci snorted, tapping away at his tablet. "He’s thinking about his bride. Again."

Luca grunted. "Should’ve just killed Moretti. Faster."

"Death’s a mercy," I said, setting my glass down with a quiet clink. "I want him to watch."

Enzo arched a brow. "Watch what, exactly?"

I let the silence stretch, savoring it.

"His empire crumble. His name turn to ash. His precious daughter kneel at my table instead of his."

I’d just taken his most prized possession. Easing him into the new situation was essential in order to crush him in the long run.

The decision to marry Sophia unlike the takedown of her father, which I’d planned since age thirteen  was spontaneous. First, she showed up as a goddess in crimson red, an ironic twist that put a grin on my face.

Then she caused a stir. Her beauty and very obvious bad manners hadn’t gone unnoticed.

Then I noticed the twinkle in Antonio’s eyes as he followed her at the masquerade. He looked proud and watching him happy grated on my nerves. 

That's when I knew.

Not just that she was his weakness. But that she could be the key to unraveling everything. Viktor's operation, the Bratva's hold on the docks, the truth behind my father's murder. Antonio had always been careful, but a man with a daughter like that? A man who'd sell his soul to keep her safe? He'd make mistakes. Big ones.

“Sins of the father shall not be visited upon his children.”

 Antonio's lips trembled when I showed up at his house the morning after the gala. I’d texted him that same night as my date unzipped my dress pants in the limo, getting ready to suck my cock. I advised Antonio to rise early. Now, he was so pale, I thought he was going to have heart failure. Wishful thinking on my part. Bastard was still on both feet, staring right back at me, his gaze asking me for a solid.

 “Paraphrasing from the Bible, are we?” I offered a provocative yawn. “Pretty sure there were a few commandments written there you have broken once or a thousand times.”

 “Leave her out of this, Dante.”

 “Beg for her. On your knees. I want to see you stripped of your pride and dignity over your silver - spooned daughter who has never lacked anything while you stole from my pockets. The apple of your eye, the belle of every ball in Manhattan, all while you funneled union funds from my docks into her trust fund. Did you think I wouldn't notice the missing half-million? That I wouldn't trace every dollar.”

The color drained from his face. Good.

 He knew exactly what I was asking.

I slammed the ledger on the desk, pages fluttering open to the damning transfers. "You should be thanking me, Antonio. Ten percent interest on stolen money would've bankrupted you. Instead?" I leaned in, close enough to smell his fear-sour breath. "I'm taking the one thing you can't replace."

His hands trembled where they gripped the chair arms. "She's not a bargaining chip."

"No?" I flipped to the last page—a photograph of Sophia's Park Avenue penthouse, bought with embezzled wages from my longshoremen. "Then why did you make her one?"

The truth hung between us like a noose. He'd mortgaged his daughter's future the moment he dipped into my coffers. Now the debt came due.

"On. Your. Knees." Each word a hammer strike. "Convince me your pride is worth less than her safety, and maybe I'll let you keep visiting her at my table."

When his knees hit the Persian rug, the thread of his dignity snapped audibly.

I didn't smile.

I rolled my mint gum inside my mouth, resisting the urge to lock my jaw. I could unleash the secret I’d been holding over his head and get it over with, but the anguish Antonio had put me through stretched just like the thing in my mouth. A gum that dragged achingly slow across the years. An eye for an eye and all that bullshit. No?

 “Request denied. Sign the papers, Antonio,” I pushed the NDA in his direction. “I’m taking my wife with me.”

Luca commented "Damn, boss."

I shrugged. "Antonio shouldn’t have helped put a bullet in my father’s skull."

Moretti had been in the room when my father bled out he’d walked away clean while my old man’s body cooled on concrete.

And now? Now I’d take everything from him. Starting with Sophia.

"Marco's widow sang," Enzo said, tossing a file on my desk. "The Bratva's moving a shipment Thursday. Big enough they needed our guns as distraction."

I flipped open the file. Grainy surveillance photos showed Viktor's men loading crates at Pier 17. My fingers tightened on the edge. That was Moretti territory. Or it had been, before he'd started letting the Russians creep in like cockroaches.

Ricci tapped his tablet. "Here's the kicker - customs logs show Antonio signed off on the dock permits. Under the table, of course."

A slow smile spread across my face. This was better than I'd hoped. Antonio wasn't just weak - he was desperate. Desperate enough to work with the people who'd helped kill my father. Desperate enough to sell me his daughter when I dangled the evidence in front of him.

"Viktor's getting bold," I mused. "Using Antonio like his personal doorman."

Luca cracked his neck. "Let me pay Moretti a visit. Remind him whose city this is."

"Tempting."

I leaned back, steepling my fingers. "But we'll let him dig his grave deeper. When Viktor's shipment arrives, we'll be waiting - with Antonio's signed permits in one hand, and a match in the other."

Enzo's eyebrows shot up. "You want to burn it? The whole shipment?"

"I want Viktor to know exactly who took it from him. And I want Antonio to watch as his last hope goes up in flames." I tapped the photo of the pier. "This is how we end them both. Sophia's the perfect leverage to keep her father compliant until then."

Ricci whistled. "Cold, boss. Even for you."

I thought of Sophia's nails raking down my back in the garden, the way she'd moaned my name even as she swore she hated me. The way her father had wept as he signed her away.

"Not cold," I corrected. "Justice."

My phone buzzed - Ms. Sterling. The wedding dress designer has arrived. Shall I have Sophia try the black lace or the satin?

I typed back: The lace. And tell her I'll be there to inspect it personally.

Because this wasn't just revenge.

It was a reckoning.

And Sophia? She'd be the spark that burned their world to the ground.